Dailies quicken their nosedive

Metropolitan daily newspaper print circulation maintained its steepening decline in the September quarter, posting an average 6.5 per cent drop, while average national newspaper circulation fell 5.5 per cent.

But the print deterioration was partially offset by increased paid digital sales for the major mastheads.

As the newspaper industry recorded its 27th consecutive quarterly print circulation fall,
Fairfax Media
’s flagship metropolitan daily newspapers continued their double-digit declines as a result of the company’s year-old strategy to eliminate uneconomic distribution footprints for those mastheads.

The Sun-Herald dropped 21.3 per cent, while The Sydney Morning Herald’s weekday edition fell 15.1 per cent and its Saturday edition 15.9 per cent, according to Audit Bureau of Circulation figures.

The Age in Melbourne fell 16.9 per cent on weekdays and 15.1 per cent on Saturdays, while The Sunday Age declined 15.4 per cent. But this was partially offset by average paid digital-only sales, which were 14,920 for The Age and 26,091 for the SMH.

Fairfax Metro Media director of marketing and communication Robert Whitehead said the increased print circulation declines for these mastheads were “exactly going to plan" with the distribution clean-up.

“Some time very soon you’ll see the quarter-on-quarter decline slowing down." Digital sales would improve once the metros introduced subscriptions for the web and tablet and smartphone apps next year, he said.

Seven West Media
’s The West Australian in Perth was again the best-performing metro daily, posting a 0.7 per cent circulation gain for weekdays, although its Saturday edition fell 5.3 per cent.

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Among national papers, Fairfax’s The Australian Financial Review posted a 6.5 per cent fall for its weekday edition, while its weekend edition slipped 3.9 per cent.

“Our total paid circulation base is comfortably ahead of where it was a year ago, but clearly the mix has shifted towards digital and away from print," said Financial Review Group chief executive Brett Clegg.

The paper’s online unique audience was 265,000 (up 147 per cent year-on-year), its paid digital subscribers were up 8200 to 23,000, and its iPad app had more than 55,000 downloads since launching in May.

The Australian’s weekday circulation fell 4.6 per cent, while its weekend edition declined 5.6 per cent.

The Australian had an average 27,796 paid digital-only sales on weekdays, which represented 18 per cent of total paid sales, although weekend digital-only sales comprised 7.3 per cent.

“Notwithstanding the fact we raised our cover price across four major metro titles this quarter, print circulation numbers have held up well in the current climate," said
News
Ltd CEO
Kim Williams
.

Tony Hale, the CEO of industry body The Newspaper Works, said combined average daily sales of the digital editions of The Age, the SMH and The Australian totalled about 120,000.

“The multi-platform publishing strategies being pursued by the major newspaper publishers have produced a very promising picture of newspaper circulations," he said.

Average circulation for regional daily newspapers fell 6.9 per cent in the September quarter.